


Bad Day

by Ashbashcrashed



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Gen, I wrote this before i saw season 13 ep 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 20:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12896418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashbashcrashed/pseuds/Ashbashcrashed
Summary: Penelope Garcia has a bad day. Hopefully someone will cheer her up.





	Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds.

Penelope Garcia liked her body. Most of the time, she loved the way she looked. Heck, sometimes she was pretty positive John Mayer had written the song ‘Wonderland’ about her. When alcohol had been consumed and she was in a great mood? The song ‘Wonderland’ was alright and everything, but it just didn’t do her justice. Next time Mayer would have to try harder.

So it was surprising to be standing in front of her mirror and hating what she saw. Sure, she had bad days—despite joking to her colleagues in the FBI that she was a goddess, she was a mere mortal—sometimes she had bad hair days or bad skin days. Today was a bad _everything_ day.

Her hair was brush resistant, product resistant, water resistant… the only thing her hair _wasn’t_ resisting was sticking out further whenever she tried to do something with it. She had to start her makeup over, accidentally using a sample foundation that was more oompa-loompa than Penelope, so she had to scrub it off. Then she couldn’t get her eyeliner even. The right eye was okay, but the left was wonky. So she had to make the right eye match, but then the left still wasn’t matching. So she added more—and more—and more, alternating and trying to get them the same. Not only were they refusing to be the same in their terribleness, the lines had gotten so thick she had to resign herself to starting over.

Scowling, she used her face wipes to remove the makeup, and realised she would have to go into the office sans makeup. Everything she had tried on looked ridiculous, and now even more so with her plain face. She settled for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt in the end. It wasn’t exactly standard, but by now she was late.

There wouldn’t be time to stop for coffee.

No coffee was bad. Really bad. The worst, out of all of the horrible things that had happened this morning.

As it was, she was still five minutes later than she usually arrived at the office, and that made her grouchy. Not only was there no coffee, there was no quiet five minutes with coffee and no murders. Penelope needed that time, and it was gone, wasted on travelling to work without coffee and with terrible hair and no makeup on and oh brilliant, there was the murder already waiting for her.

And you can’t really complain about how sucky your day is going when you have a picture of a victim on your screen, and you’re imagining them photo shopped with a speech bubble reprimanding you, “It could be worse, you could have been murdered.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled to herself, rubbing her eyes. Being alive wasn’t all that great either. Not that that line of thinking was ever helpful. When were the anti-depressants going to kick in?  
More importantly, why hadn’t she just gone for coffee, and turned up ten minutes late? She was always the first one here, no one would know if she was late. I would know, she sighed to herself. Stupid, stupid me.

One of her mobile phones rang. She glared at it. It was ringing. Loudly. She picked up the offending object without checking the display. It was probably Kevin.

“You need to obey Lady Gaga, and stop frickin’ ringing me at ridiculous hours of the day.” She croaked, eyes shut. She rubbed her temples, frowning.

“You’re sipping bub at… 9.17 in the morning, Garcia?” Aaron Hotchner asked.

She coughed and spluttered, her eyes flying open.

She had just yelled at her boss.

And he had quoted a Lady Gaga song at her.

That was like, a joke.

A joke referencing a relatively current cultural phenomenon.

Accusing her of day drinking.

She let out a strangled noise, realised that wasn’t an answer, and mumbled a slightly more substantial answer about being late and no coffee.

Hotch told her to prepare a go-bag.

“Wheels up in 20.” He said, hanging up before she could respond.

It was a damned strange morning.

 

Because she worked long hours, she had accumulated a box of clean clothes and toiletries under her desk. When the team was on a particularly tough case she would live out of her office, barely taking the time to eat, drink or visit the loo.

She made sure she was showered, presentable and pumped full of caffeine by the time they got back so they would never know. (But there was no point in lying to profilers, and there was sometimes a funk in her office which was telling)

She also favoured large handbags Dr. Spencer Reid likened to the Tardis. That often lead to conversations about whether the plural of ‘Tardis’ was ‘Tardises’ or ‘Tardi’. Regardless, she was thankful for the large handbag today. Within ten minutes she was ready.

Penelope could have packed quicker under normal circumstances, but she was _tired_. She worked fourteen hour days, primarily for the BAU and her specific team, but she also assisted two other teams regularly. Other teams requested her help on the fly. And if she could help them, she did, and she didn’t begrudge it either. Twice a week she was a voluntary grief counsellor.  
She loved her work. But it was time consuming. Emotionally draining.

To do it all with a smile on her face—every day a new set of murders, crime scene pictures, videos, people’s lives to root through, her team’s safety in the field to stress over—required a lot of caffeine, sugar, and anti-depressants.

But she was also very picky. She wasn’t like Derek Morgan, raised on crappy cop coffee, drinking anything with a smile and a thanks. She had a system. The rest of the components to that system were in her bag, but the system wouldn’t work unless she’d had a macchiato (flavour dependent on season) from Mika’s, the coffee place near her apartment.

Today she had missed her alarm and had to skip the coffee, and now she felt and looked like crap. It was true that the system, if effectively activated, still wouldn’t do anything about her terrible, terrible hair, but at least she would have been able to function. Nevertheless, she left her office with her large handbag and started her shuffle towards the jet.

 

“Good morning, baby girl.” Morgan called to her, his usual, sexy, cheerful self. Penelope scowled.

“No it isn’t,” She replied. Thankfully, she managed not to snap; she didn’t want to be rude and abrupt, especially not to her angelfish.

“Sorry cupcake,” she said, her voice a little softer. Derek smiled and took her hand, rubbing a circular pattern while they walked.

“Here, let me take that for you,” he offered so sweetly she wanted to cry. Why was she such a bitch when she was tired and decaffeinated? With a yawn, she handed her bag to him, trying to smile through the yawn. It was unsuccessful. He laughed, squeezing her hand.

“God, you’re cute.” He told her with a chuckle. She knew she should be feeling something right then, but she was too tired. All of her energy was focused on staying upright and walking.  
They made it to the jet without Penelope falling over. Emily Prentiss and David Rossi joined them, greeting both Penelope and Derek, but she had to concentrate on walking and didn’t reply. They were miffed, until Derek explained her response to his own greeting. They nodded and left her alone, walking in silence the rest of the way.

Reid and Jennifer Jereau (JJ) were already on the jet, settling in and talking about Henry. As always, they were in high spirits talking about the toddler. The happiness faltered when they looked at their usually peppy Penelope.

She didn’t pay any attention, simply falling into a seat and closing her eyes. She didn’t bother to bemoan the luxury of the jet, or point out how well they lived in comparison to her, the shut-in.  
Sleep. Sleep was good.

Drifting in and out of consciousness she knew that her profilers were profiling… her.

She could vaguely tell that Hotch had arrived, because a silence fell. He sat in front of her, placing a cup directly in front of her. A cup that sounded like coffee. Her eyes flew open.  
Coffee.

“One half caff extra shot venti two pump non-fat hold the whip caramel macchiato.” Hotch said, as though she didn’t already know that by the cup, proudly pronouncing it one of Mika’s finest, and the smell.

She began to gulp the contents quickly, tempting Emily to chant ‘chug’. She settled for giggling.

“Mmm, my lord and saviour,” Penelope said with a grin once she had drunk three quarters of the cup.

“Is she talking about you or the coffee?” Rossi asked with a smirk. Hotch blushed, and Penelope waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“I’ll never tell,” she replied, with a smirk of her own. Everyone laughed, even Hotch, though the cute blush still remained.

He started the briefing, to change the subject, and she listened up, as she finished off the coffee. Once the briefing ended, she made her way to the kitchenette (“You guys get way cooler stuff than I do!”) and started putting the rest of her system in place. Hotch grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge.

She looked over at him, some of her uncooperative hair in her face. “Thank you.” she said, quietly.

“It’s not a problem,” he replied, equally quiet. “Five years today, right?” it wasn’t really a question—he knew it was the anniversary of the shooting. She nodded, a small smile on her face.

“It’s been a really bad day.” Her voice was quiet. She was so tired.

“It hasn’t been as long for me, since Foyet…” Penelope was about to talk, but he held up a hand to stop her. “It hasn’t been as long for me, but there are lots of bad days.” He reached his hand out to her; she took it.

“We’ll leave our hands and our hearts on the dance floor.” Hotch said solemnly, a wicked glint in his eyes. As expected, Penelope Garcia let out several large peals of laughter, and filled the jet with the warm, throaty sound her family had come to love. It was still a bad day; but it was getting slightly better.


End file.
